


working for you

by complicationstoo



Series: STB Bingo Round One [12]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Aftercare, Alternate Universe - No Powers, Angst with a Happy Ending, Bottom Bucky Barnes, Hooker Bucky Barnes, Insecure Bucky Barnes, Love Confessions, M/M, Not Actually Unrequited Love, Sugar Daddy Tony Stark, Top Tony Stark
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-19
Updated: 2021-01-19
Packaged: 2021-03-17 11:35:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,181
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28848435
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/complicationstoo/pseuds/complicationstoo
Summary: Bucky sits up on his elbows in the bed to watch Tony pull his boxer briefs back on. His muscles ache at the movement, and he stretches out each one of his arms again. Tony’s undershirt goes on next, and he’s reaching for the charcoal slacks as Bucky asks as casually as possible, “So when do you need me next?”“I actually wanted to talk to you about that," Tony says. “I think it might be time to put an end to our arrangement.”
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Tony Stark
Series: STB Bingo Round One [12]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2037892
Comments: 13
Kudos: 337
Collections: STB Bingo: Round One





	working for you

**Author's Note:**

> Written for my Steve | Tony | Bucky Bingo square:  
> B1 - Belt
> 
> Title comes from Working For You by Jake Scott, which has nothing to do with this at all, but let's be real, it worked for a prostitute bucky fic lol

Tony’s hands are gentle as he undoes the clasp of the belt around Bucky’s wrists, like they always are at the end. It’s a counterpoint to the roughness of just a few minutes ago, to the bruises sucked into his skin and the slight burn from where Tony pushed all of his limits. It’s almost like an apology with the way he strokes his thumbs over the reddened skin and presses soft kisses into the places the leather cut into him. 

This is always Bucky’s favorite part. The sex is spectacular always, somehow the best of his life every time, but it doesn’t come close to touching the way this feels. For these few minutes, he can pretend that all of it is real. That when Tony carefully wipes his skin clean with a warm, damp towel it isn’t because he’s being a decent employer or because Bucky did good work tonight. He can pretend that the touch is done out of love, and he can think about what it would be like to be held after. He lives for the five minutes of the day he can vividly imagine Tony crawling into bed next to him and wrapping him in his arms, falling asleep like that and waking up together having never shifted in the night, because even asleep they needed to be close. 

But Tony gets up from the bed when he’s done with the aftercare, discarding the towel in the hamper in the bathroom and going towards his clothes that are neatly folded on the chair, and the vision fractures in front of him.

Every time he reminds himself that this is why the whole arrangement was a bad idea. He should have known better, should have heeded the warnings of his friends when they said that working for just one client would result in him being the only one getting attached. But getting attached was never a problem for him before. He’s always known how to turn off feelings when it comes to sex, having done it for years now. Sex is an exchange - his time and energy for their money. Sometimes his pain if that means it’ll earn him more. 

He thought the same would be true with Tony, even if the arrangement was a little different. In addition to the sex, his time and energy at galas, events, and the occasional business trip went in exchange for the lavish Manhattan apartment, clothes, food, and every other little thing that he could want or need. Tony never promised any sort of affection as part of the deal, not even in the bedroom, and he’s kept up his end easily. Anything close to it is all acting, part of the show that convinces the general public that Bucky isn’t getting paid to be at Tony’s side. The good moments they share are nothing more than politeness, even when Bucky could almost convince himself that it’s more than that. He just had to go get himself emotionally attached to the other man anyway. 

He isn’t sure if it makes it better or worse that he knows without a doubt that he could never be good enough for Tony. A college dropout who sells himself for money doesn’t match up to the billionaire genius who buys him. It was hopeless from the start. 

Bucky sits up on his elbows in the bed to watch Tony pull his boxer briefs back on. His muscles ache at the movement, and he stretches out each one of his arms again. Tony’s undershirt goes on next, and he’s reaching for the charcoal slacks as Bucky asks as casually as possible, “So when do you need me next?”

Tony doesn’t answer for a long moment, focusing on stepping into the pants and buttoning them back up. It’s strange, but honestly when isn’t Tony just a little strange? He grabs the white dress shirt next, just holding it in his hand by the collar as he says, “I actually wanted to talk to you about that.”

His tone doesn’t suggest it’s a good conversation, and Bucky feels his stomach drop. “Oh, okay. Is something wrong?”

“I think it might be time to put an end to our arrangement,” Tony says.

Bucky sits up straighter, bringing his knees to his chest and wrapping his arms around his shins like a shield. “What, why? Did I do something?”

Tony is turned to the side, only letting Bucky see half of him, but he can see his reflection in the darkness of the window. His jaw is set tight, but his face is otherwise devoid of emotion. 

“It was nothing you did. I just don’t need you anymore.”

That hurts to hear more than Bucky will ever admit, and Tony continues on, unaware of Bucky’s pain, “I needed a public relationship to appear stable for the board, and now that that issue is taken care of, there’s no reason to continue. You can keep this place, of course. It’s paid off and already in your name. The clothes, laptop, all of that is yours to keep as well. Sell everything if you want, I don’t care.”

Tony pulls on the shirt, seemingly done with everything here, and Bucky doesn’t quite know how to breathe. “That’s - that’s it? It’s just done?”

Buttoning up his shirt, Tony turns to actually look at him. “It was always temporary. You knew that.”

“And what am I supposed to do now?”

“Finish your classes, get your degree, get a real job,” Tony says. “Quite simple, really.”

The words are meant to cut and they do. His voice is completely neutral, bordering on cold. Bucky isn’t sure he’s really heard it like that directed at him before, and he doesn’t know what he’s done to deserve it. 

“A real job? Trying to tell me something with that?” Bucky challenges, angry now instead of hurt. “Sex work only good enough for someone when it’s benefitting you?”

Tony sighs, finishing the top buttons, “I never said that. You’re the one who was always talking about getting out.”

“Yeah, it’s not the permanent dream, but it doesn’t make it less real.”

“Alright, fine. Forget I said that,” Tony says, holding up his hands in surrender. “All I’m saying is it’s not like I’m leaving you destitute.” 

Bucky hates the way Tony sounds, like none of this matters to him at all. He always knew it wasn’t as real for Tony as it was for him, but he’d like to think it was a little more than nothing. At least friendship, maybe, if all the times they talked in one of Tony’s cars, at dinners and parties, and sometimes before or after sex were anything to go by. He told Tony things about himself and received things that seemed personal in return. 

He’s the only one that knows about Tony’s nightmares, the only one that’s ever comforted him after one. Tony couldn’t hide them when they shared hotel rooms for business trips, and Bucky held him while he trembled and tried not to cry. He was also the one that Tony talked to on the anniversary of his parents’ deaths, when Tony was half a bottle of scotch deep and told him things that they haven’t spoken of since. Bucky picked up the shattered pieces of glass and left him with a glass of water next to his bed. 

And Tony knows all about Bucky’s own demons. The three years of combat right after high school that left him demoralized, the friends he lost over there just after meeting them, the bullet that almost cost him an arm. He knows about the dreams Bucky long ago gave up on, all of the plans that he once thought would shape his life. Apparently he calls them ‘getting a real job’ now. 

It doesn’t make sense to him that Tony could just walk away. That he could be perfectly fine to walk out of this apartment and disappear from his life just like that. He thought that the last ten months meant more. 

Bucky decides then that there’s nothing left to lose. If this is going to be the last time anyway, he might as well put it all out on the line. 

“Do you even realize that I’m in love with you? Have you seen it and you just don’t care, or are you really that oblivious?” he asks, and he knows he sounds desperate, but he is. 

Tony freezes with his hand on the cuff of his shirt, in the middle of straightening it. His eyes are wide, and his face is running through every emotion like he doesn’t know which one to pick. 

“Don’t say that,” Tony shakes his head, voice even harder. Anger was apparently his choice. “You don’t mean it, so don’t say it.”

“How the hell do you know what I mean?” Bucky shoots back. He wishes he was wearing something so he could stand up, but all he has to cover himself with is the thin sheet around his waist. It’s like he’s trapped on the bed while Tony is free to walk out on him at any second. 

“I give you things,” Tony says, positively venomous. “I give you everything you need, so you think you love me when you don’t. It’s fucking stockholm syndrome.”

Bucky laughs bitterly, “As if I really needed anything from you. I could’ve ended this, too, you know. I didn’t sign a contract, you didn’t lock me up here, I wasn’t obligated to stay. I chose to stick around with you, and not for the goddamn paycheck. God knows there’s a hundred other people I could’ve fucked for the same amount.”

“Well, great. Guess that answers what you’ll do after this is done.”

“Just shut up!” Bucky shouts, and Tony blinks in surprise, mouth snapping shut. “And hand me my fucking clothes if you’re going to keep arguing with me.”

There’s a pause, and Bucky takes a deep breath to calm his rapidly beating heart. He thinks for a moment that Tony is about to leave, but at the end of a long, silent minute, a pair of boxers is tossed onto the bed. 

Bucky reaches for them, and by the time he has them on, the fight has drained from him, leaving him dejected instead. Of all the ways he thought telling Tony could possibly go, being told his own feelings weren’t real wasn’t one of them. He was ready for the possibility of rejection and believed it to be the most likely outcome, but this goes beyond that. His vision goes a little blurry, and he bites his lip hard, willing himself not to cry. 

“You don’t get to tell me how I feel about you,” Bucky says, quietly so his voice doesn’t break. “If you don’t want me, that’s fine, but don’t tell me my feelings aren’t real.”

Another painfully long pause, and he feels the bed dip next to him. A hand touches him, calloused fingers wrapping around his still sore wrist, and Bucky pointedly looks away. 

“You honestly believe you love me?” Tony asks. 

“I know I love you. It’s not a belief, it’s a fact. The sky is blue, ice is cold, and I’ve been in love with you for months.”

“You don’t even know me,” Tony says, and the coldness in his voice has been replaced with a deep sadness. 

Bucky turns to look at him, finding the same sadness in his eyes as well. “That’s not true. You’ve told me things that nobody else knows. Things you never want to talk about, except somehow you always tell me.”

Tony swallows, looking down at the place where they’re connected. “Doesn’t mean you know me.”

“What? You wanna quiz me or something?”

Tony laughs, but it’s humorless. “What would that prove? That you know the way I take my coffee and what I eat for breakfast? That’s not love.”

“Isn’t it, though?” Bucky asks. “Part of it, anyway. Because you like it black during the week but you add sugar on weekends, and you don’t really eat breakfast often, but when you do it’s usually a danish from that bakery on 42nd street.”

“How do you know that?” Tony questions, and Bucky desperately wants to kiss that look of his face. The bewilderment that someone knows anything relatively personal about him at all. 

“Same way I know that you hate mint unless it’s with chocolate, and you still have the mittens Pepper knitted for you for the first Christmas after you met, even though they’re almost all unravelled now and they were ugly as sin to begin with. And you tell people that you don’t remember why you got that tattoo on your hip because you were drunk, but really you got it completely sober after your mom died because it was her favorite flower. 

“You listen to a surprising amount of pop music for a guy who claims to only like classic rock, and you always wear a blue tie when you’re nervous because it’s supposed to be a calming color. And I guess I should’ve known I was fucked when you wore it tonight, huh?”

Bucky takes a shaky breath, and he inches closer on the bed. Lifting his free hand, he takes Tony’s face in his palm to keep him looking at him. “The point is that I pay attention to you. I like knowing that you always put your left sock on first and that you drink hot chocolate when you can’t sleep. I like that when I stay over in the guest room at the penthouse, I can almost always find you in the kitchen at three in the morning with an extra mug for me. Doesn’t that count for anything?”

Tony looks at him for a long time, his breathing ragged and his eyes wet. He seems broken in a way, all of him laid out in front of Bucky for him to see as easily as reading a book. 

“Doesn’t it?” Bucky asks again. 

Tony nods slowly, and he looks down at their hands again to say, “I make an extra mug for you because I know you can’t sleep either most nights, and I like it when you sit next to me because you tell me all kinds of things that make me feel better without even trying. Like how you don’t like thunderstorms anymore, but you used to when you were a kid, and you played shortstop on your little league team, but you wanted to be a pitcher. You put so much syrup on your pancakes that I don’t even know how you taste them anymore, and honestly it would probably just be easier to drink it from the bottle at that point.”

Bucky laughs, “The whole point of pancakes is just to get the syrup, Tony.”

“No, it’s not,” Tony laughs with him, shaking his head fondly. He bites his lip, the smile dropping just a bit as he goes back to serious, “You don’t really like it when people touch your right arm, but you’ve never flinched when I do it. You think Citizen Kane is the worst movie ever made, and you don’t care who you offend by saying it, but I know all about your secret addiction to trashy reality television, which honestly should mean that you don’t even get to have an opinion on the worst movie anymore.”

Smiling, Bucky strokes his thumb across Tony’s high cheekbone. He leans in, nose brushing along his jaw as he presses a delicate kiss there. Tony makes a soft sound, and his fingers tighten reflexively around Bucky’s tender wrist, then lighten up almost immediately. Ever careful not to hurt him, even on accident. 

Bucky keeps his face tucked in against Tony’s neck, allowing Tony not to look at him to provide his answer to the question he asks next. “Are you trying to tell me something here, doll?”

“I know you, too,” Tony whispers. “And it does mean something.”

“Say it,” Bucky whispers back. He dots a line of three kisses down Tony’s neck, then slowly drags his lips up through it to reach his ear again. “Tell me what it means.”

Tony inhales unsteadily, and Bucky can feel his jaw move against his lips as he clenches and unclenches it. “You weren’t supposed to put up a fight, you know. When I’m trying to run away, you’re supposed to let me.”

Bucky huffs a laugh, “Why would I do that? Why the hell would I just let you go when I’m in love with you?”

“Because you weren’t supposed to love me back. I’m a terrible person to be with. Everybody knows that.”

Bucky can’t breathe again, but this time it’s from the crashing wave of relief. He pulls back a little to look at Tony, eyebrow raised. “So the grand plan was what? To tell me that it’s over, be a massive dick on the way out, and never see me again?”

Tony nods, but at least he has the sense to look guilty over it. “Perhaps not my best plan, but in my defense, I didn’t think I had a shot in hell with you.”

“As if I’m possibly the one who’s out of anyone’s league here.”

“Don’t say that,” Tony says, and it’s the exact same sentence from before, but said a hundred times softer. “You’re better than just about anyone I know.”

“Just  _ about  _ anyone?” Bucky repeats, mock offended. “Who’s better?”

Tony laughs, “Only you can self-deprecate in one sentence and claim you’re better than everyone else in the next.”

“Well, that’s just not true. You happen to be very skilled at it yourself.”

Tony hums in agreement, while Bucky rises to his knees. He pushes on Tony’s shoulders, wishing that he wasn’t almost fully dressed right now, and lowers him to rest against the mattress. Slinging a leg over Tony’s hips, Bucky grabs both of his hands and pins them above his head. He holds Tony’s wrist with one hand, letting the other drift lower to work open the buttons on Tony’s shirt. 

Tony watches him in amusement with one eyebrow cocked. “So I tell you I love you and you think you’re in charge now?”

Bucky leans down, pulling Tony’s earlobe into his mouth and giving it a sharp nip. “Technically, you haven’t told me you love me yet. And technically, you fired me, so you don’t get to call the shots anymore, babydoll.”

Tony gapes up at him, and Bucky smirks in return. He starts to speak, but Bucky rolls his hips to grind the beginning of his erection over Tony’s growing bulge, and he’s rendered speechless. 

“I’m sorry to tell you that you’ve just lost the best employee you’ve ever had.” He grinds down again, taking pleasure in the way that Tony’s breath catches in his throat. 

Tony grins lopsidedly, “That’s alright. Pretty sure I’ve just gained something a lot better.”

Bucky dips down, kissing him hard and claiming, and his words are a near growl, “Damn right you did.”

**Author's Note:**

> find me on tumblr [@ifmywishescametrue](https://ifmywishescametrue.tumblr.com) :)


End file.
